


Dark Gray All Alone

by pepsicola



Series: Passionate As Sin [3]
Category: South Park
Genre: M/M, Stepbrother AU, Title is a lyric from "Red" by Taylor Swift
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-14 15:32:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18950932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pepsicola/pseuds/pepsicola
Summary: Some hurt beyond belief.





	Dark Gray All Alone

Waking up is painful. Every day I wake up only to remember I actually chose education over a person. To remember that I made this decision, and to remember how much I miss him.

I wince, curling up into fetal position. Tears sting my eyes. I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t have let him go. I want to go back to sleep, back to my dreams where I have him in my arms and he’s stroking my hair and telling me everything will be okay, only for me to wake up and expect him to be there next to me, but he never is.

My roommate is gone. Already in class. He starts early. I start after ten. I don’t think I could get up any earlier, especially in my emotional state right now. I get up from my bed, my head muddled and groggy. It’s been a month since the breakup. I feel like shit.

And me reminding myself as I go through my routine about the truth of it all doesn’t help. It only makes me want to curl up in a corner and cry and call him and tell him I’m sorry and that I regret my decision and that I’ll drop everything just to kiss him one last time.

As I walk to school, I remember that today’s the last day before Thanksgiving break. I’m going home for the week. And I don’t know who to spend it with. Aside from my family.

But Butters was my family, and I cut that off.

I’ve always been an idiot.

School helps me momentarily forget. Getting in the motions of schoolwork and lessons clear my mind. Only for awhile though. It never lasts long. It’s a strange coping mechanism—school. I hated school. And then I chose it over Butters. The only love, the only real thing I’d ever known.

I miss him. That statement’s never been more true.

 

Being back in my room hurts too. In this town. Full of memories we’d made as kids too young and dumb to realize what we had.

We made so many memories in this bedroom. He made us official in this bedroom. He started it all here. I can see our ghosts on the bed if I concentrate.

I broke us off in October. Over FaceTime. I couldn’t do it in person. I wouldn’t be able to stand the tears on his face. I cried all night after I did it. I swore to myself that over this break, I would mail his stuff back to him. All his stuff hidden away in my bedroom where we made our memories.

My heart hurts.

I start with my dresser. He had a drawer full of his clothes. I pull it open with shaking fingers. The sight of his folded up shirts and jeans brings fresh tears to my eyes.

No. No more crying. Not with Mom, Dad, Clyde and Bebe downstairs. As I was walking up to my room after lunch, I felt their worried gazes on my back as I went up the stairs.

Maybe they think I’m mentally unstable at the moment.

Maybe I am.

I have a box opened up to my right, ready to be filled up with old memorabilia of our relationship. It feels like letting go of a piece of me I’m not ready to let go of. I wonder if he’s in town. I wonder if he’s still in Boulder with Stan and Kyle and Kenny. I hope Kenny’s taking good care of him.

I got off the plane today. I arrived at nine in the morning. I slept the whole flight over, sinking back into the same dream of Butters murmuring assurances in my ear as he holds me tight. I’m anxious to sleep in my bed. When I accepted University of Pennsylvania’s letter, there wasn’t a day we spent apart. He slept in my bed every night. Every part of it, always invading my space.

I’d kill to get him to invade my space again.

I don’t think I’ll be able to force myself to fill that space tonight. I wonder if my pillows still smell like him the way his old scarf does.

I kept that thing. He wrapped it around my neck as a parting gift before I got on the plane last year. His smell is starting to fade. I hate that. It’s my last piece of him aside from memories and sweet dreams. It’s the one thing I don’t think I’ll be able to send back. It reminds me of him and his innocence and the way he looked at me like nobody else did.

I pull out the first shirt, and a pathetic whimper leaves me as it unfolds before me. God, every piece of clothing here will bring back a memory. But this one in particular is a vivid one.

It’s his Swan Song Led Zeppelin shirt. The one he wore when he ran away from home and into my arms. I remember him coming into my room at eleven in the morning, face red from tears. He told me his parents grounded him. But he wouldn’t have it. Not with our limited time together.

I made a remark about how he didn’t even listen to Led Zeppelin. He laughed and fit his face in my neck. He told me as we laid there on my bed how his parents could never understand what we felt. They didn’t love each other like we did. I was the only one who understood his pain.

Staring at the logo and remembering how it was the first thing I noticed when he came into my room that morning stings. I fold it back up, putting it in the box.

Every shirt _does_ bring back a memory. I don’t even get halfway through the drawer when I have to stop before I break down from it all. I turn around, catching a glimpse of turquoise, and for a heart-stopping moment, I mistake it as Butters standing by my bed, watching me pack up all his stuff.

I blink, and I realize it’s just his old jacket hanging from my bedpost. With a shaky sigh, I get to my feet and take the jacket. Lately, I’ve been doing double-takes when I see something out of the corner of my eye that I think is Butters. It never is. Just something or someone that looks like him.

I’ve always had demons. Ever since I was a kid. But they all looked different. Sometimes my demons spoke to me through my stuffed animals. Or as a floating cupid version of me. But my demons look different now. All my demons look like Butters.

I’ll wake up some mornings before my alarm goes off, and in my bleary state, I’ll see Butters sitting at the end of my bed in my dorm in Philadelphia. He’ll be watching me, smiling softly, but whenever I try to reach for him to pull him in, he disappears. Vanishes. And I’m left there, hollow.

I’ll never even get the chance to remind him that I love him more than anything, even in my hallucinations.

My thumb grazes the fabric of his jacket. It’s worn. He’s had it since middle school, and somehow through all those years, it still fit him, though eventually it started to grow limp and thin towards the end.

I look around my room. It’s silent in here. Not like when I isolated myself up here with Butters. Our whispers were always floating in the air. The curtains are pushed back, the sun coming into the room. The dust motes floating through the beams remind me of our first kiss.

I fold up the jacket and put it in the box. When I stand back up, my demons mock me again. Butters is sitting in my desk chair, watching me with a slight tilt of his head. He glows softly like the sunlight coming into the room.

Most of the time when I try to interact with the illusions, they disappear. But sometimes they follow me at my heels. The only way to get rid of them is by reliving the memory that they’re not real. Butters is no longer with me, and I let him go. It was my stupid mistake, and it’s mine to rue. Only then do they go away, leaving me aching in regret.

I was so fucking dumb.

I approach the mirage, and it smiles as I get closer. My hand rests on its cheek, and it’s warm and soft and so real. Even the way it leans into my palm. The illusion’s eyes, paler blue than they are in real life, stare into mine. I step away, swallowing the lump in my throat. I fish my phone from my pocket and play music too cheery for my mood to drown it out. Sometimes if I distract myself enough, they go away. I turn my back on it, refocusing on Butters’ drawer of clothes.

“It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not real,” I mutter to myself, over and over like some twisted mantra.

I’m in a crouch, about to sit on the floor again to continue, but the hallucination steps in front of me. I stare up at it. It smiles down at me, taking my hands. It still feels so real as its fingers curl around mine. It pulls me close, and I can even feel its breath on my cheeks. Then it starts dancing, swaying to the song playing from my phone.

It dances me around my room. My room full of memories that Butters and I made. Memories of way before we became boyfriends, and memories of our very last moments.

There was a time, after prom in senior year, when Butters and I went back to his house, still euphoric from the event. Still in our tuxedos, I played music from my phone. He pulled me to him and we danced. We danced around his room, laughing and smiling and kissing like I wouldn’t be leaving him that following September. It was one of the last moments I felt truly happy without having the thought that I was going away in four months in the back of my mind.

The song playing right now is the same exact one we danced to after prom.

My eyes start leaking. Burning hot tears roll down my face. The ghost of Butters frowns, lifting a hand from my shoulder to wipe away the wetness. I hold his hand to my cheek, feeling the blood pump beneath his fingertips.

“Don’t cry,” he whispers.

His voice sounds real. None of my other illusions ever spoke.

“We were fucking idiots,” I say. “Especially me. I let go of the one thing that mattered to me. I was too stupid to realize what we had.”

His thumb moves over the back of my hand. “You knew exactly what we had when we had it. We both did.”

I laugh dryly, blinking out bitter tears. “I miss you, Butters. Every day.”

He smiles softly. “I miss you too.”

I look into his eyes, too pale to be really Butters’. They’re brimmed with tears, and it reminds me of our very last FaceTime call. It makes my heart twist.

“I love you, Eric,” he says. His hands are on my cheeks when he brings my face down to his. He kisses me. We hold it there, immobile, our lips lingering on each other’s.

I break the kiss. He stares into my eyes. My throat burns.

“You’re not real,” I rasp, the reminder stabbing me right in the chest. For a moment, I really felt I had him. I really felt he was the real thing.

The ghost of Butters frowns, looking down at the floor. His hands slide down my face, dropping to my hands, where he squeezes my fingers. His eyes meet mine one last time as he starts to fade away.

Then he’s gone.

I stare at the box that’s just starting to fill with his clothes. A box full of memories.

But this room holds memories too. Memories of kisses and touches and late night dances after midnight.

They’re all so vivid and real.

But it’s just not the same without the real Butters.

#  **× × ×**

Memes make me feel like I’m a part of something. They make me forget about my real life circumstances.

I snort at one, so cryptic and vague you have to know the foundation of a plethora of different memes to get it. I scroll past after double tapping.

And I stop dead.

Even after a year, I never unfollowed Butters on Instagram. It didn’t feel right. He never unfollowed me. I haven’t gotten any of his posts since we broke up. I never figured out why.

But now one of his posts are on my feed. It’s recent too. From a couple hours ago.

As I stare at it, a hazy gray film creeps from the corner of my eyes and over my vision. My dark room grows darker. My gut sinks. My blood goes cold.

It’s a picture of him and Kenny.

Butters’ top half of his face is in frame. His pale blue eyes are bright. They’re lighter than the sky behind him. His hair is ruffled in the wind.

But picture’s mostly centered on Kenny’s smiling face.

He’s nuzzled into Butters’ ear—pierced, I notice—and he has his arms around Butters. Butters’ mouth is unable to be seen, but I can tell he’s smiling.

They look happy.

They look in love.

It throws me off.

So much so that I panic. Frantically, I close Instagram, going to my gallery. I scroll back through hundreds of pictures in my camera roll until I find the old photos Butters and I sent back and forth when we were together. Some are of his face. Some are of his bare skin. In the photos, even through a screen, his skin is pale and soft. I wish I could reach through the screen and touch him. He looks so perfect. It reminds me of the way he looked in real life. The photos don’t do him justice. A camera can’t capture that bashful beauty he had.

Minutes later, I find myself in a daze, miserably masturbating to those pictures, remembering the way his body felt so blissfully against mine.

It’s an escape. I’ve done it before. A month ago, though, I told myself I would stop. I broke my streak. But I’m too caught up in my head to feel guilt or shame.

With my eyes closed and memories of us tumbling around in his bed, I can feel his breath on my lips. I can taste his kiss. I can feel his hands on my skin, traveling down my back as he bucks his hips up to mine.

As soon as I cum, reality catches up with me.

I’m alone in my dorm room, twenty years old, living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I’m in my bed, a mess in my hand, and a phone screen lighting up the dark. I grab a tissue, cleaning myself off. I toss it into the trash by my bed. I pull up my boxers, but I leave my jeans discarded on the floor. I pull my blankets up to my shoulders.

My eyes feel heavy. They start leaking, silently at first. But then sobs start hiccuping from my throat. I take my pillow from under my head, putting it over my face to stifle the pitiful noise. Les is out with his girlfriend. I have no need to muffle my cries. But I hate the sound.

I fall asleep like that. With my pillow over my face, soaking up my tears.

I dream.

It’s a dream of me and Butters at sixteen. We’re in my room in South Park. My back is against the headboard. Butters is sitting with his legs folded in front of me. He’s in my T-shirt and blue boxers with silhouettes of bunnies on them. It’s not a memory though. This is just a lucid dream.

Butters tilts his head at me. His ears are piercing-free. “What’s wrong?” he asks.

“Everything,” I say.

He scrunches up his nose. He’s so cute. It makes my heart ache.

“Whaddya mean? What could possibly be wrong? You got me, doncha?” His smile lights up the room.

I smile, leaning in close to him until our noses touch. “I guess I do.”

Butters’ smile turns shy. He looks out the window. The setting sun makes his hair white. It makes his eyes glow. He looks like the hallucinations I used to have when I was nineteen. Those stopped after the new year came around.

His smile fades off his face. He looks at me again, taking my hands. He says, “I’m so much happier here with you, Eric. I could never be this happy with Kenny.”

The name makes anger flare in my chest like a stoked fire. I squeeze his fingers. “He doesn’t know you like I do,” I seethe.

He nods, scooting into my lap, wrapping his legs around me. He tucks his head into the crook of my neck. I secure my arms around him protectively. His body fits against mine perfectly. His voice is like wind chimes when he speaks, faint and resonating. “He really doesn’t. It ain’t the same.” He slides his hand down my chest. “It’s not like with you. Please make me yours again, Eric. I’m nobody else’s but yours. I belong to you.”

I pull him back to search his eyes, glowing blue. His hands move from mine to grasp at my forearms. His skin is warm.

“Promise me,” he whispers, his voice edged with desperation.

I glance at his lips as he forms the words. I meet his eyes again. “I promise,” I rumble.

He presses his plush lips to mine like sealing an oath. I realize that’s exactly what it is. He smells like cotton candy. Just like the way he did during our first kiss. He tastes like it too when he opens his mouth against mine. He pulls back an inch. His eyes are still closed. When he opens them, the blue is so bright it’s almost white.

He murmurs, “We’ll see each other again, Eric. I know we will.”

I run my fingers through his hair, cupping his jaw. “How?” I ask, coming down from the high as I start to come out of the dream. “You’re with Kenny.”

He kisses me softly. His breath plumes against my lips. “Meet me in another life.”

I bolt upright awake, coated in cold sweat, gasping for breath. His parting words are a whisper of wind in my ear. _“A life where I was once yours.”_

#  **× × ×**

“I wanna show you something.”

I follow Arthur into the science building, my shoes catching on a rise in the sidewalk. We were at a party. Even though I graduated when I was twenty-two, a lot of my friends still attend UPenn. This is their graduation party. When I’m not working, and if there are parties, I come back to spend time with my friends. Arthur and I drank a bit, and we started about the thing we’ve been talking about since we met. He says he finally has it. He just needs to place it into a housing device, and it will finally work.

We toss our empty Solo cups into a nearby trash can. Arthur wipes his mouth with his sleeve. “I finally figured it out. We can finally do it. Trust me. This will be the greatest thing we’ve ever done.”

He pulls a card from the ring of keys on his belt loop, holding it up to the scanner next to the door. The bulb blinks green, unlocking. We go into the lab. He leaves the lights off. The metal tables are littered with wires and motherboards.

He leads me to another door within the lab. He holds up his card again. The door unlocks. I close it behind me. Arthur shrugs off his jacket and drapes it over his chair. He’s twenty-six. He graduated at twenty, but decided to stay at UPenn because all of his notes and inventions are here.

Arthur’s smart. He invents things. We met through one of my professors. Arthur found out I was majoring in business. He majored in engineering, specifically electrical engineering. We realized that we had the same desire: to become successful.

Five years ago, my desires were put into motion with his help.

Arthur’s a comic book guy. He loves superhero movies and sci-fi and all that. Sci-fi is what inspires him the most. He wants to prove that some of the topics aren’t just fiction, that he can make them reality. But none of the companies he’s gone to accept his theories or inventions. They thought he was crazy. They wouldn’t even bother to see his inventions.

I wanted to start up my own company, but I didn’t know what I would sell or manufacture. I had the idea that if we worked together, we both could achieve our desires. That was five years ago.

My company sells a type of contact that projects a holographic screen in front of the eye. It’s like a computer right in your vision. It’s the Cornea. At first, we sold in secret, only to other rich businessmen tempted to experience the new product. But now it’s making its way to the public market. Arthur made it, in inspiration of Iron Man’s helmet.

He’s a complete geek, but I wouldn’t be where I am right now without him.

Arthur took notice of the type of person I am when we’d first met. I’d asked him why he attended UPenn over MIT. He would’ve fit right in. His mouth had twitched into a scowl at my question, and that’s when I’d theorized he didn’t get into MIT, but got into UPenn instead. He’d said I was right. And that’s how we became friends five years ago.

Arthur sits in his chair, pulling files from the drawers of his desk. He works for me, and has since day one. He has an office in my building. He comes here to work on that special thing he’s talking about since it’s too fragile to move. He calls it the HourGlass. Otherwise, all his experiments are performed at my headquarters.

He chuckles hysterically, running a hand through his hair. “They said it wouldn’t be possible.” He looks up at me, his eyes alight with mania. He’s always reminded me of a mad scientist. And that’s what he’s been made out to be. “They said going back was impossible,” he says to me. “I made it possible.”

I sit in the chair in front of his desk. “You figured it out? How?” I ask. Hope sparks in my chest where it has no place to be. For all I know, he could be a little too drunk. He could be a little too delusional.

He chuckles lowly. “I don’t have the time to explain. I need to show it to you. That’s what’s important. I’ll make you more than rich, Cartman. I’ll make you more than just a lonely millionaire.”

Arthur’s desires aren’t to be surrounded by money like me. He only desires to be respected, to prove all that laughed at him wrong.

He swivels in his chair, facing the safe behind him. He presses in the code. It hisses open. He takes a metal box from the safe. He touches his thumb to the fingerprint scanner. It beeps. He lifts the lid.

I scoot in closer, looking into the box. I snort at the extensive space for a chip no bigger than the nail on my pinkie. Arthur can be so dramatic sometimes. He picks it up with a pair of tweezers and holds it up between us.

“This is it,” he breathes. He locks eyes with me. “This will get you all you’ve been missing.”

I swallow thickly. There’s one thing I want more than money. Something I lost five years ago due to ignorance. This little chip will get me that lost thing. I feel it when my adrenaline spikes, my heart pounding.

“When can I use it?” I ask.

Arthur sits back in his chair. He stares absently at the opposite wall. “I need a housing device. I don’t have the time to make some other device specifically for it.”

I scoff at his mention of time and what of it he doesn’t have. He’s right about it, in some ways. He’s been busy coming up with new patents and inventions for my company. But this chip is what he’s been wanting to complete the most. It was his most difficult challenge yet.

I sigh, rubbing my brow. “We’re so close,” I mutter.

My smartwatch blinks on in alert of an incoming call from one of my colleagues. I decline it. He knows it’s my day off. My hand freezes on the power button on the side of the watch.

An idea clicks into my brain.

I look at Arthur, who’s closely examining the chip under a microscope. I tap his desk. He looks up. I suddenly share that manic glint that was in his eye. “Would this work for a housing device?” I undo my watch, sliding it across the desk to him.

He picks it up, turning it over. He meets my gaze, smirking. “It just might,” he says.

We bask in silent triumph for a moment. Once it passes, Arthur says, “It will take me awhile to fit the chip into the watch, unfortunately.”

My hands twitch in anxiety. “How long?” I ask.

He shrugs, placing both the watch and the chip into the metal box. “It should be done by the time you come back from the wedding.”

Clyde and Bebe’s wedding is on the last day of May. They’re having it in Cabo. It’s the second week of May currently. When I go to Baja California for their wedding, it’ll be the first time I’ve seen them in two years. I had to stop going back home for holidays when my company started getting big. I got too busy. And Thanksgiving and Christmas was the only time of the year I’d see Clyde and Bebe and my parents.

“It’s going to take you almost three weeks?” I say, disbelieving.

“I’m going to have to make adjustments to the watch. Along with everything else in my schedule, it’s going to take a bit. Especially if we want the results to be successful and flawless,” he says. “We want to exterminate all possibilities of failure, after all.”

“Fine.”

Arthur picks up the box. We leave his lab. “You should say goodbye and give a final congratulations to Les and Callum. I’ll be waiting in the car,” he says.

We go separate ways, him to the parking lot, me to back where the party is. Finding Callum is easy. He sways on his feet, both arms around girls. He grins when he sees me.

“Aye, Cartman. There you are. You disappeared for a bit there,” he says, words slurring.

I smirk. “Business shit. Anyway, I came to say congrats on finally graduating, you lazy-ass,” I say. “Took you long enough.”

He laughs, letting go of the girls to clasp my hand and bump shoulders with me. “Not everyone gets rich quick like you,” he says.

We talk for a bit. I laugh too much. Callum gets funny when he’s drunk. Eventually, I have to leave.

“See you, dude,” I say.

He throws up a deuce.

Les is harder to find. After asking around, I find him sitting on the grass outside. I sit next to him, looking up at the empty black sky.

“Back to work?” he asks. His words are clear. He probably hasn’t touched a drink all tonight.

I nod. “Yep.”

He chuckles, shaking his head. “How much do you have in your bank? Millions? Billions? You probably could retire by next year and be set for life,” he says.

I snort. “Nah. I like what I do. I’m not retiring anytime soon.”

“Good for you. You’re always gonna be the friend I go to if I need money.”

I laugh.

“What’s it like, being a millionaire at twenty-four?”

“Hard.”

“Oh I’m sure it’s _so_ hard making millions a day. _Such_ a burden.”

We share a laugh.

I say, “Congrats on graduating by the way. I don’t think I ever mentioned it to you.”

“It’s fine.”

I pluck blades of grass, watching them fall from my palm. “I wish I could talk more. Reflect on what a good time we had in college. All that dumb shit. But I gotta go.” I get to my feet.

“Just remember that the time you had with us was unprecedented,” he says.

I chuckle at the reference to my company, Unprecedented, as I walk away. In my car, Arthur’s in the passenger seat, his hands on the lid of the box protectively. The drive back to the HQ building is in silence.

I drop Arthur off at the HQ building. I hand him the charger to the watch through the open window of the car.

Arthur says, “I’ll have it done by the time you come back from the wedding. Until then.”

We nod at each other. I drive off, he goes into the building.

My home feels so empty when I enter through the tall double doors. It’s a big place for only one person to be living in. It’s always so quiet and vast and lonely. I hate it. But hopefully when I come back from Clyde and Bebe’s wedding, it won’t be like this anymore.

#  **× × ×**

On May twenty-fourth, a day before I get on my flight to Cabo, my secretary informs me through the telecom on my desk that there are two government agents requesting to speak with me. I hold down the speak button. “Let them in,” I say.

The blurred glass doors open. Two burly men walking shoulder to shoulder enter, their faces a model of blankness. They stand in front of my desk, their hands clasped in front of them.

“Eric Cartman,” the one in the left says.

“That’s me,” I say.

The one on the right peers down his crooked nose at me. It makes me thankful that I only have a small bump on my nose as evidence of the blows I’ve taken to the face as a kid. “We are agents of the CIA. We are here to ask about a certain device. We’ve heard that it’s able to manipulate the cycle of time. We are here to secure it within the United States’ possession, under the careful eye of professionals.”

I laugh, making sure I sound disbelieving.  “You think my scientists and engineers have discovered _time travel?_ It’s a bit far-fetched, don’t you think?” I say. “We make Corneas and improvements to the human body. Not objects of science fiction.”

Crooked Nose leans forward, his hands splayed on my desk. He levels his sharp gaze with me. He tries to intimidate me. Funny how he thinks he can intimidate me with his size and his glare. “Mr. Cartman, we do not _believe_ that such a device is being manufactured here. We know for a fact,” he says.

I square my jaw. Selling some of your previous shit to the government isn’t always the best move, no matter how much they offer. I regret the choice more often than I’m satisfied with the trade I made of fifty million dollars.

Crooked Nose’s face splits into a menacing grin. “We understand that you’re young, Mr. Cartman, but we also understand that you’re smarter than you let on. So be smart about this. Give us the device, and we will leave you without threat or consequence.”

I sit back in my chair, kicking up my feet onto my desk. “I’ll sell it to you.”

Crooked Nose scowls, but his partner holds him back. “How much?” the partner asks.

I drum my fingers on my stomach. “Three hundred million.” A sharp grin of my own crawls onto my face.

When the two stand still as statues staring at me, I turn up my palm.

“You have to understand. This device is one of a kind. There’s nothing else like it. The price is only fair. It’s what we spent on it after all. All the money we spent on research and material and whatnot. Not to mention the faith we put into it working properly. It isn’t cheap stuff.”

It’s a lie. It cost less than half the price I’m asking to make that chip.

The agents glance at each other. “We’ll discuss with our superiors. We’ll get back to you by tomorrow at the same time as today.”

I smile at them. “I’ll see you soon then.”

The agents leave.

I wait ten minutes until I’m positive they’ve left. I hold down the speak button on the telecom. “Bring up Diaz,” I tell my secretary.

“Right away, sir,” she says.

Arthur comes up less than five minutes later. “I heard,” he says.

I nod. “Typical of the fucking government. Can’t mind their own fucking business. You still have the spare?” I ask.

“Of course.”

“Good. Get ready to sell it. Make it convincing. It needs to last me another two weeks.”

Those agents come back the next day at the same time, just as they promised. They have the money. I give them the HourGlass, even if it’s just a sham. It’ll function like the real one, but it won’t send them back. By the time they’ll realize this, I’ll be long gone.

#  **× × ×**

It’s hot in Cabo, even if it’s only May, even if I’m sitting in my Jacuzzi in lukewarm water.

Clyde and Bebe’s wedding is today in a couple of hours. I’ve mostly kept to myself since the guests arrived on the twenty-ninth. I don’t leave my room unless I have to, and really, there isn’t a reason for it. I have food here, and a bed, a bathroom, and this Jacuzzi where I can see the ocean ahead through the balcony doors.

But I mostly keep to myself so I don’t run into anyone. Specifically Butters. Because I know that if I see Butters, Kenny will be there right there next to him.

Just the thought makes me grit my teeth.

There’s a knock at my door.

“Hang on,” I call.

I grab a towel from the rack nearby, drying myself and walking to the door. I open it to see my mom standing in the doorway.

“You’re not dressed?” she asks. She sounds surprised.

“No,” I say.

She hums, stepping into my room. “You should get dressed,” she says.

“I would if I had the privacy for it.” I glare at the back of her head.

She sighs, her facade crumbling. She turns to me, her sympathetic expression smoothing out the wrinkles in her face. “I saw Butters at the bar just now,” she murmurs.

“Okay?”

She grabs me by my forearms, staring up at me. Her brown eyes search mine. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I scowl, brushing her off me. “I’m fine. Can you please leave so I can get dressed?” I snap.

Mom doesn’t leave. She says instead, “It’s okay to feel jealou—”

I whirl on her, my words biting. “What’s to be jealous about? You think that just because he’s moved onto Kenny that I’m _jealous?”_ I scoff. “This isn’t high school, Mom.”

She squares her jaw and pulls back her shoulders. “I don’t understand why you’re getting snappy with me. I’m just trying to have a conversation with you. I’m just checking up on you. Honestly, Eric. It’s like you’re ten all over again.” She shakes her head, leaving the room with a slam of the door behind her.

I sit heavily on my bed, my hands shoved in my hair.

She’s right. I _am_ back at square one, back to the moody brat I was at ten. Maybe it’s because of the money. Maybe it’s because of how familiar my name is to strangers. Maybe it’s because I lost the one thing that brought out the good in me.

I get dressed, not wanting to think about it anymore. I hate the hot twisting in my chest when I think about how stupid I was at nineteen.

During the wedding and after, the mood is cheery and light with the feeling of love. It seems that all of my friends are in relationships. They all have someone to share a smile with.

It’s disgusting.

After I finish eating my cake, I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take being around all these happy couples. I hate feeling like I’m the only one without someone to hold. I stand, my chair scraping against the marble floor.

“Where are you going, Eric?” Mom asks, her brow furrowed.

“Don’t worry about it,” I say gruffly.

Mom, Dad, and Charlene share the same concerned expression as they watch me hurry out of the ballroom. With each step, it gets harder to breathe. The laughter and the music swims through my head, making me dizzy.

I step onto the balcony, taking a deep breath in, tasting the salt from the air on my tongue. I groan, leaning on the stone railing, my head pounding.

“Fuck,” I hiss through gritted teeth.

I don’t know how long I stay like that, bent over the railing, facing the ocean. My mind stays blank as I wait for the nausea to pass. Out here, the sound of the ocean crashing onto the beach is louder than the music coming from the ballroom. I watch the waves pull back, and sea foam melts on the jagged rocks below.

As the sun begins to sink, I’m reminded of all the other sunsets I’ve watched throughout my life. I was usually on a roof for all of those, feeling the wind blow through my clothes. Unlike here on this balcony, I wasn’t alone then. I was always right beside the person I loved the most. I was always right beside Butters.

It’s not like that anymore.

Because of me.

The sound of people coming onto the balcony is static in my ears. I’m static everywhere. My limbs, my head, my heart. It’s all fuzzy and unfeeling.

That’s when I hear a laugh I grew up listening to. It sounds better in real life. My memories don’t do it justice. I turn, my blood roaring through my ears. Butters stands at the entrance to the balcony. He’s laughing up at Kenny, who has cake icing all over his mouth. My gut churns when I see Butters go up on his tiptoes and kisses Kenny’s face. I feel sick when I see a flash of his tongue, licking away the icing.

I seethe, glaring hard at the ocean ahead of me.

What was I thinking, letting Kenny have what’s mine? What kind of idiot do you have to be to willingly give away the love of your life because you feel like a burden?

_“I just—I want you to love him in the ways I couldn’t. Protect him like you always have."_

I regret those words every day. I regret telling him that. I regret thinking it was what was best. Those words come back to me in my dreams sometimes, and I wake up in a cold sweat, hating myself.

Heat pricks on the back of my neck. It’s not from the sun. It’s from the feeling of eyes on me.

I don’t turn in the direction where I know Butters and Kenny are huddled up close. I pretend that I haven’t noticed them.

I hear Butters’ hissed words through his teeth, then the low rumble of Kenny’s voice. There’s silence between them.

And then Butters’ is standing right next to me.

I force myself to not look at him. I force myself to continue pretending I haven’t noticed.

He doesn’t say anything, and neither do I. I hear the rustle of clothes as Butters moves. From the corner of my eye, I watch him and Kenny sign at each other in sign language. I never considered what it might look like to argue with hands. It’s just a bunch of angry movements. I don’t need to know sign language to know they’re talking about me.

My eyes move up from Butters’ hands to the side of his face. His appearance shocks me. Not because he looks different, but because his ears are pierced. It shouldn’t shock me though. I saw his piercings in that Instagram post when I was twenty. I guess it never occurred to me then they were real.

Abruptly, Butters faces forward, his hands on the railing. On his left wrist, I notice a small palm tree tattoo. It’s an outline with only five leaves. I bite my tongue, remembering how he told me once that he’d never get a tattoo or a piercing.

Clearly, that was a lie.

He stands rigidly, his shoulders tense. His fingers drum on the railing. Five years ago, I would take his hand. Five years ago, he was mine, piercing and tattoo free.

He clears his throat. “How’ve you been?” he asks, his voice tight.

I’ve played out how this conversation would go in my head countless times. I didn’t expect to be choked up when it happened in real life though. In my imaginings, Butters was still mourning the death of us, even though I knew him and Kenny were happy together in reality. I guess I never factored in that he really might not feel for me anymore. I guess I’ve held onto the hope that he might for so long, I convinced myself it was true.

I find my shoulders lifting in a shrug. I answer, “Good. You?”

He doesn’t answer right away, looking out at the ocean. “I’m good. Never been better, actually.”

There’s a sharpness to his voice that makes me want to curl up and die in regret. I want to face him, to look at him completely, and not just the side of his face. I want to see the other changes Kenny’s made on him.

“You, uh, you look different,” I say, unable to keep it in.

He jerks in surprise, facing me. I don’t face him. He says,  “Oh. Thanks. I think.”

I turn to him, staring at the side of his face. He has a pink hibiscus tucked behind his ear. I have a gut feeling it was Kenny who put it there.

“You got piercings.” I glance at his wrist. “And a tattoo.”

His hand touches his ear, then his wrist. “Yeah. Kenny did my piercings back when we were twenty.”

As he smiles down at his tattoo, whatever annoyance and tension he held before is gone. He’s completely glowing. I’ve never seen him look so happy. It was never like that with me.

“As for the tattoo, we got ‘em last summer in Kauai. He has a matching one. Same hand, same place. We decided on palm trees ‘cause it reminds us of Kauai, and ‘cause it symbolizes victory, triumph, peace, returning happy from a journey, resurrection, and eternal life.”

I mutter, “Kauai, huh?”

In all the years Butters and I were together, we didn’t go to Kauai once.

He beams. “Uh-huh! We go every summer. We started doin’ it since back in the summer after our college graduation. It became kinda a tradition since then.”

That means him and Kenny have been going to Kauai for three years. When Butters and I were together, we never went. He never even mentioned it. Suddenly, he’s dating Kenny and it’s their thing. Maybe it’s always been their thing, and that’s why he didn’t offer to take me there. Because he didn’t want me to taint his and Kenny’s holy place.

I smother the scowl that wants to work its way onto my face, ignoring the childish feeling of whining about how unfair it is.

He continues, “We’re actually planning on moving to Kauai. When we go down this summer, we’re gonna be lookin’ at this home we found. It’s close to the ocean and everything. We’re hopin’ to be moved in by the end of January if everything goes to plan. We’re sicka havin’ to pay rent for three spare bedrooms we don’t even use.”

My mouth goes dry. They’re moving. To Hawaii. In a couple of months. They’re really starting a life together.

A life that was supposed to be mine and Butters’.

I mumble, “Three spare bedrooms” instead of mentioning anything about their plans of their future. If there are three spare bedrooms out of the four in that apartment, that means him and Kenny are sharing a room.

Sharing a bed.

I wonder how long that’s been going on.

“Yeah. Ever since Stan and Kyle moved out two years ago, Baby Doll and I’ve been tryna get outta there so we don’t gotta pay for unused space.”

I glance at him. Baby doll. So that’s his pet name for Kenny. I wanna vomit and laugh at its stupidity.

I flick on the voice recorder in my palm. The thing is so small. It’s unlikely he’ll notice. Especially when he’s so focused on Kenny. I hate having to do this to him without him knowing I’m recording our conversation. But somethings are better left unsaid.

“Wow. You guys really got it figured out,” I say dryly.

“Yeah.” His whole body turns towards me. He tilts his head. It makes my cheeks flush as I slip the voice recorder into my sleeve. “What about you? What’ve you been up to?”

My head drops between my shoulders. I mumble, “You know. Just... business stuff. It’s a lot, but I enjoy it.”

Yeah, business stuff. Like recording the first conversation between me and my ex boyfriend in five years.

There’s quiet between us.

I keep my focus on the water and on the orange sky, fading to deep blue as nighttime approaches.

He says, “Two years ago, I saw a news segment about you. You were bein’ interviewed about how your business came to be. You mentioned something about goin’ through a tough time at nineteen.”

Something in my chest jumps at the fact that he saw me, even if it was just on TV. I look at him, he looks at me. It’s not like the past times we’ve locked eyes. He holds no wide-eyed adoration for me in those ice blue irises.

He says slowly, “Was that time… our breakup?”

I can’t stand the blue emptiness of his eyes. I turn away. “It was.”

He laughs, “Oh. Well, at least some good came outta all that, huh? You’re rich and successful. And me… I’m gettin’ ready to move states with Kenny.”

He looks back at Kenny. The ethereal glow around him is brighter now. Originally, I told Kenny in senior year to take care of Butters because I was trying to be selfless. All my life, I’d only thought about me. So in that moment, I thought it would be good to think about the only other person who mattered to me.

My eyes were opened, and selflessness, I realized, isn’t my thing.

So I lie to him. “I-I’m glad that you two—got together. I think I had a feeling from the very beginning.”

That part is true, at least. I did have a feeling that he and Kenny would end up together, in the deepest of my insecurities. But the lie stands where I tell him I’m happy he and Kenny are together. I’m not. I’m bitter that they got together. I’m bitter that he’s moved on. I’m bitter that I haven’t.

There’s a hint of happiness in Butters’ voice when he says, “Yeah?”

My throat closes up on itself, like it can’t take the lies I’m spewing out to him. I nod instead.

There’s quiet between us. During this quiet, I let my mind drift. I didn’t expect him to be so happy. I didn’t expect him to be so in love that anyone who looks at him can see it. It almost makes me not want to go through with this. It almost makes me regret what I’ve been working on ever since I started my business. Almost.

I’m selfish. I only care about my well-being. But I also care about Butters, and I miss the way he used to kiss me.

I dig my teeth into my bottom lip. Half of me urges me not to do it, to let Butters be happy with Kenny, and to just accept that he’s over me. But the other half reminds me of what will happen if I continue. This half reminds me of all the good times we shared, and how much more we’ll be able to share, if I can just get him to answer.

Slowly, those memories of us that I haven’t thought about in a while come back to me. These memories I’ve almost forgot. In my mind, we’re back on that street with the canopy of trees, leaves drifting onto the road. I remember looking over at him in the passenger seat, and almost running that red light because I was watching in awe at his smile.

Then we’re running down the stairs in the dead of night, giggling quietly to not wake the others in the house. The fridge is open, and I take his hand, pulling him to me as I dance us around the dark kitchen.

I lost all that.

And for what?

I shove away any thoughts of regret. “Um, can I ask you something?” I say.

He says, “Sure. You can ask me anything.”

Really, I wanna ask if some part of him still loves me. But that’s too forward. And I already know what his answer would be.

I wet my lips. “If you could… Would you… would you go back to me?”

When I found out from Clyde and Bebe that Butters would be here at the wedding, this was the question I’d been repeating over and over in my head, trying to perfect it without it sounding heartbroken.

I failed at that part.

His lips turn down in a thoughtful frown. He looks back at Kenny again. I look at Kenny too, trying to see what Butters sees. Kenny’s talking to Jimmy and Annie. His back is to us. Then he laughs. Butters leans into his palm more. I can practically see the smile he directs at Kenny.

Finally, he speaks up. “If things had ended up differently between us, then maybe. But I’m happy where I am now. I found somethin’ real and right. I found someone I love so much that sometimes I can’t even wrap my head around it. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

It’s the final blow that makes me fall completely apart. It hits me right in the chest, knocking the wind out of me. I had known from the start of this conversation that that would be his answer. I’d known that he wouldn’t just willingly come running back into my arms.

And that’s why I can’t have him do it willingly.

My voice is hoarse. “Yeah. Me too. I’m happy where I am.”

It’s a lie.

He beams because he believes me. “I’m glad that we both built something good outta the bad.”

Staring at the ground, I force a smile. “Yeah.”

He pats my shoulder. If it didn’t hold so much pity, I might relish it. He picks up his shoes that I hadn’t noticed he took off. “Well, it was sure nice talkin’ to you after so long. I’ll see you around,” he says happily.

My head jerks in a nod. “See you,” I rasp.

I switch off the recorder.

He turns and leaves, right back into Kenny’s arms. They smile at each other, and Kenny kisses Butters’ nose. Then he dips his head, connecting his and Butters’ mouths.

I grip the railing to keep upright as the world teeters beneath me. The sound of the ocean and music and laughter from the ballroom is too loud. The nausea returns, rolling over me in waves. They leave the balcony holding hands, leaning into each other.

I stick my head over the railing in case I barf. The ocean below seems miles down. The world is distorted. My breathing is shallow, and it comes in as strangled chokes.

I stay completely still, afraid that if I move, my dinner and that cake will come back up. I can feel it tossing around in my stomach.

Down on the beach as little figures, Butters and Kenny stand at the water’s edge. Butters takes Kenny’s hands in his own, facing each other.  They touch foreheads. Then they’re kissing again.

Now I really do feel everything I ate climbing up my stomach. I run like hell to the nearest bathroom in the lobby. But I don’t make it. I throw up everything I’ve eaten today, along with bile and water, on the sparkly clean marble floor.

The world’s a blur when I see Mom, Dad, Charlene, Clyde and Bebe come out of the ballroom, their faces fuzzy with concern.

Mom puts her hand on my back. “Eric? Are you okay?” she asks.

I stare down at the mess I’ve made on the floor. I look to my family, their faces aghast. Bebe has her hands over her mouth, and Clyde starts walking over to me, his arms out like he’s about to hug me.

And then I’m crying in shame at the mess I’ve made and how I’ve ruined Clyde and Bebe’s wedding because I’m too much of a child to let go of something that was mine. Mom holds me to her, directing me towards the bathroom. In the back of my mind, I’m laughing at myself, an almost-twenty-five-year-old being escorted by his mother to the bathroom as I cry like some pathetic bitch.

Mom’s words are garbled in my ears, but I imagine her telling Dad to inform someone of the vomit on the floor so it can be cleaned up. I don’t even care when she leads me to the women’s bathroom.

“Do you have to throw up more?” she asks when the door swings shut behind us.

The taste in my mouth is foul, but my stomach is empty. “No. I’m fine.”

She sets me in front of the sinks. She turns the faucet on, and I rinse my mouth out. I lean my head on my hands over the still-running sink, staring at my reflection in front of me.

I look horrible. My skin is pasty and sheen with sweat. My hair hangs limp over my dim eyes. I look dead, I realize. I look the way I feel, inside out. I look to Mom in the mirror. Her brows are knitted, her hand moving up and down my back.

“What happened, sweetie? Did you eat something?” she says.

“No.”

Her mouth opens, a question on the tip of her tongue, but she decides against it, looking away instead.

I swish water through my mouth again, just so I won’t be focused on that expression.

The bathroom door opens, and Clyde comes in, breathless.

I stand up straight. “I’m sorry—” I start.

He pulls me into a hug, squeezing me. “Don’t worry about it,” he says, his voice muffled by my shoulder. “It’s nothing to beat yourself up about. It happens to the best of us.”

I conform to the hug, putting my arms around him. Despite having been brothers for eleven years, we don’t hug a lot. I can count the times we’ve hugged on one hand.

When we leave the bathroom, Dad, Charlene, and Bebe don’t ask what happened. They don’t ask why. Because they know why.

A part of me hates that.

No.

All of me hates that.

All of me hates that everyone in this villa knew and grew up with me and Butters being together. They grew up hearing and believing we’d be like Tweek and Craig, destined to get married someday. And they know now that I was the moron who tossed all that out the window for a reason I can’t even see as reasonable anymore. They know that Butters and Kenny are together. They know they’re happy. And they know that they’re closer than me and Butters ever were to achieving that _I do_ and that house up on a hill.

I go to bed that night, feeling just as hollow as I did the first night I tried to sleep after breaking up with Butters. I’m wide awake and alone in a cold king-sized bed. Butters is sleeping soundly in a bed he’s sharing with the person he loves.

The irony in this all is that when we first broke up, he took it hard, while I just went numb. I continued on with everyday life, but he could barely function. Now that it’s been a few years, he’s okay, and I’m the one doubling over in pain. He’s able to move on and move past. He’s able to see good in the bad. And I’m stuck in a broken timeline of what we could’ve been.

#  **× × ×**

Four days after coming back from Cabo, Arthur has the HourGlass done and ready, just like he promised.

“Everything went well?” he asks.

I shrug, dropping the voice recorder into his palm. I cross my arms. “Depends,” I say. “What are you hoping went well? The marriage of my brother and his high school sweetheart, or me recording that message for you?” I point to the recorder.

He flips up the USB, swiveling around in his chair to stick it into his computer monitor on his desk. We’re alone in his office. It’s more private here. No one else who works for me knows about the experiment Arthur and I have been overseeing for years.

He says, “Neither. How’d talking to your ex go?”

I stare at the back of his head, my mouth agape. I sneer as my face begins to heat. “Where’s the fucking HourGlass so I can get this shit over with?” I snap.

Arthur spins back around. “I need you to tell me how it went first,” he says.

“Why?” I growl.

He blinks slowly at me. “You have to still want this. You can’t have second thoughts. If you end up having second thoughts, we have to call this whole thing off. There’s too much we’ll be risking if you doubt _anything._ Even the slightest, seemingly insignificant thought, and we can’t go through with this.”

I scowl at him. “I still want this. I’m not having doubts. This is my _only_ chance. I need this more than you can fathom. That’s all you need to know.”

Arthur shrugs nonchalantly. “Fine. I have the audio of the conversation to listen to anyway. I was just hoping you’d tell me first.” He faces his monitor and begins clicking away.

I watch over his shoulder as he opens the file. My ears burn as I listen to mine and Butters’ conversation, this time with an outsider listening in. I sound so weak in the audio. I sound so broken. It makes me cringe.

Once the audio is over, I pull up a chair next to Arthur. I slump into it, holding my forehead. We sit in silence. Arthur lets me writhe in my pain.

“It sounds like you got his consent. Somewhat. In a twisted way. He _did_ say he’d go back to you,” Arthur says, attempting to reassure me. He fails.

“If things were different,” I say, scoffing. “He’d go back to me if things were different.”

“And we’re going to get you that something different.”

I glare up at him.

His eyes are sharp, narrowed in retaliation.

Anxiety twists my gut. I sit back, sighing. “So when do we start?” I ask.

We end up in his lab. He has all the engineers and scientists clear out, leaving just the two of us. I look around. I don’t come down to the labs very often. I’m too busy to. It reminds me of the lab Arthur had in college. There are metal tables and stools. On the metal tables are a variety of tools and materials. Things on the tables are in disarray, evidence of the quick up-and-leave Arthur issued.

Arthur has his own lab space. Shades are pulled over the windows. The room looks colorless and gray.

Arthur brings out the watch from its safe. He hands it to me. I stare at it. It looks the same as when I first gave it to him. I turn it over. There’s nothing out of place. It’s seamless. You wouldn’t guess that this thing can send a person on a one-way trip back in time.

As I fasten it around my wrist, Arthur begins to explain. “Remember, when you go back, you’ll be going back as yourself and whatever age you were then. Not as a second person. This isn’t a _Back to the Future_ thing where you’ll run into your past self. Your past and present self will become one. This reality will cease to exist as soon as you confirm it on that watch. The only risky thing about this, though, is that you won’t have another part of yourself to remind you to not choose UPenn. You’re going to have to somehow come to that conscious decision on your own. If you so happen to choose UPenn again in this restarted timeline, it’s likely you will end up right back here. We’ll be stuck in a loop until you can somehow get your past self to choose Boulder. Also, if some other factors interfere, you might never end up back here. You might end up working as a mechanic in your hometown, alone forever. This is why, Cartman, you have to somehow get into Boulder. Or if you so happen to choose UPenn again, you have to retrace all the steps you made to get here. But the problem is that there’s no possible way for you to remember. You may feel deja vu at some points, as well as other people, but no memories will return. It’s like erasing everything until you get to that point, with no way to get it back. Understand?”

I nod.

When I was in fourth grade, a future version of myself came back in time and told me I would grow up to be CEO of my own time traveling company because I would eat healthier, improve my grades, and stay away from drugs and shit. I’d made some snooty refusal to spite him—me—because I thought it was some stupid joke, since “future” versions of my friends were popping up around town to keep them away from drugs and alcohol. That version of me was stupid to try to talk to my past self. Did that me not know the basic rules of time travel? I probably fucked up the timeline somehow by refusing. Or maybe I ended up right back on that timeline to becoming a CEO when I got with Butters. He helped me improve myself.

Maybe that’s why I’m here today. Maybe that’s why I’m doing this.

Did that past me have the same reason for so desperately going in search of a way to go back in time to clean up my mistakes? Because a person would only ever dream of a time traveling device if they had a motive to go back. Was my motive the same then? Was I in regret of how I lost Butters, all the way back in fourth grade? And what drove me to the wild idea of time travel?

I don’t think I would’ve even thought of trying to find a way to go back in time if it weren’t for that dream I had years ago. Butters’ whispered words still ring in my ears, five years later: _“A life where I was once yours.”_

And that life is before I doomed myself by choosing an Ivy League college one thousand, seven hundred, and sixty-three miles away from him.

More determined than ever, I turn on the watch. The screen blinks on, welcoming me. My name’s on the screen and everything.

 _Welcome, Eric Cartman._ _Are you certain that you’re willing to go through with the proceedings?_

I look up at Arthur. He just stares back at me blankly.

I press _Yes._

It sends me to the home screen of the watch. Nothing’s out of the ordinary as I swipe through.

“Now what?” I ask Arthur.

“Set the watch to the date—day, month, year—and the time of the day you want to get to. Don’t confirm the date just yet though,” he instructs.

I do as he says, setting the date to December fourth, six years ago, at 4:20 p.m. “Got it. Now what?”

Arthur’s quiet as he messes with his computer. He looks up at me. “Everything’s ready. So… whenever you are,” he says.

We stare at each other.

I wonder if Butters would hate me if he ever found out about all this. I wonder if he would hate me for taking away his happy new life with Kenny just so I could hold him again.

“Do you think we’ll ever see each other again?” I ask Arthur.

He shrugs, putting his hands in his pockets. “Maybe. That’s something I can’t answer.”

“I wouldn’t have gotten here if it weren’t for you. You were a big help to me, and I’ll forever be grateful, even if I won’t remember it. It was good knowing you.”

He says, “You too, boss. And good luck.”

I hold the scarf around my neck up to my nose. It doesn’t linger with the scent of something familiar anymore, but it still holds memories in the stitches of fabric.

I silently pray to God that everything goes to plan.

I exhale shakily.

I lift my wrist of my left hand, my finger on my right hovering over the watch. My heart pounds erratically in my chest. I take another deep breath in to calm myself down. I confirm the date. And in the last second I spend in this timeline, I close my eyes and murmur, “I’m coming back, Butters. Just like I promised.”

**Author's Note:**

> “But you keep my old scarf  
> From that very first week  
> ‘Cause it reminds you of innocence  
> And it smells like me  
> You can’t get rid of it  
> ‘Cause you remember it all too well…”  
> -All Too Well


End file.
